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Student shows 2013: University of Westminster

25 July, 2013 | By Rakesh Ramchurn

Rakesh Ramchurn reviews the University of Westminster’s end of year show

A huge exhibition comprising projects from every course saw two floors of Westminster’s space teaming with drawings, montages, renderings, models, maps, suspensions and even live goldfish. Each year is split into studios with a different focus. Some saw students developing existing locations such as Soho or King’s Cross, while others explored design by creating skyscraper communities.

Standout unit ‘Rome Radical Retrofit’ saw a scenario of extreme population growth applied to the most historical of cities to explore how Rome’s empty monuments could be retrofitted to provide housing units. Wonderfully evocative drawings depicted how contemporary design would squeeze itself into the spaces between the classical ruins, such as Jess Tettelaar’s sketch of Trajan’s Market developed into a housing complex and Sharon Rehill’s reworked Colosseum. The models were striking, as they were based on historical structures visitors would recognise, but demonstrated how the students would overhaul these spaces.

Standout student Fergus Seccombe, working as part of a unit under the title ‘Science_Fiction’, created a series of visually-striking images for his ‘Centre for Simulated Disaster Landscapes’ where disaster relief rehearsals could take place in a world of increasing environmental problems.

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